


Of olive oil and bionic legs

by jjjat3am



Category: Almost Human
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 19:36:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjjat3am/pseuds/jjjat3am
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian develops a rapport with John's prosthetic. It proves surprisingly useful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of olive oil and bionic legs

**Author's Note:**

> Some guesswork on the inner workings of DRN units. Disregards ep.3 because I haven't seen it yet. Does the time skip thing, hope it makes sense.
> 
> Also, can semi-sentient prosthetics matchmake? This is a completely scientific question.

 

 

It's only been a few hours and Dorian is already fed up with his new partner.

 

Sure, the detective work is exciting, because it is what Dorian was made for and his synthetic synapses are lighting up with glee, but John Kennex's grump can grate even on the most sympathetic listener, which Dorian definitely is. The truth is, Dorian is worried. The detective acts unflappable, but it's plain to see to his humanoid senses that the recent events are weighting on the detective heavily.

 

Dorian doesn't want to be intrusive, not any more that he’s already been anyway, so he stays quiet while Kennex's prosthetic leg beeps incessantly.

 

The wrinkles around the detective's eyes betray that the limb must still be causing him pain and his pained sigh when he gets out of the car is what finally breaks the camel’s back (Dorian makes a note to update his colloquialism routine – he’s sure no one has used that expression in decades) and convinces him to act . As they walk down the street to the suspect's house, Dorian takes advantage of the crowds to press closer to Kennex and lets the scanner on his finger-pads carefully connect to the synthetic limb.

 

It's a curious machine, the synthetic. Not sentient, but with its own intelligence. It's not made to form words, so Dorian tries his best to decode the stream of information and sensations he's receiving. The most immediate is the strange awareness of the way John is walking, the synthetic muscles that contract and release with every move, the motor nerves firing signals and sensors responding to outside stimuli. It's overwhelming for a moment, until Dorian figures out how to regulate it. It soon becomes apparent that, while the limb is outwardly functioning, the information flow inside it is muddled and cuts off completely in places, causing the wrong muscles to respond to non-existent signals. John is controlling the prosthetic through sheer force of will, devoting his whole skeleton and a significant amount of nerve endings to propel him forward.

 

He's not using the prosthetic as a limb; he's using it as a crutch.

 

Dorian opens his mouth to warn him, but the words stick in his throat when a string of code terminates completely and the resulting spasm of pain makes the detective wince. Dorian has just enough time to receive the diagnostic on the problem, before the detective steps away from him as the crowds thin out.

 

With this information Dorian feels a new-found respect for Kennex, to add to the admiration from before. He sets a sub-drive to decoding the message from the prosthetic and devotes himself to the detective work.

 

The translation program completes itself just as Kennex is digging into his pot of noodles. Dorian needs a moment to put it together[ 'lubrication on key points', 'pressure', 'non-harmful to synthetic skin'] and as if on cue, the prosthetic beeps again.

 

"I have a cure for that." John raises an incredulous eyebrow. Dorian remembers that he hadn't spoken for the duration of the meal and that his sudden statement might be considered strange. "Olive oil"

 

"Olive oil?" Dorian smiles.

 

 

*

 

 

John's prosthetic still beeps the next day and the next, and if the vaguely guilty looks he's sending Dorian's way are to be interpreted, he hasn't yet tried the olive oil. Dorian understands, they've been working after dark some days and if he knew the detective, he probably continued working even after he dropped Dorian off at the recharging facilities. So he does a little shopping of his own (with his first paycheck, and doesn't that sound nice) and pulls the detective into an empty office on their brief break.

 

"Okay, take off your pants." Dorian says and locks the door.

 

"What the fuck?" John is gaping at him, confusion and indignation warring on his expression, that is, for once, completely open.

 

'That didn't come out right.' "I'm not hitting on you; the sexual harassment sub-units won't allow it." Dorian pulls out the small bottle of good quality olive oil from his coat pocket. "Just roll up your pants legs for all I care, just let me fix it for you."

 

"Now look here..." "I'm looking and I see you wincing. Now either you let me touch your knee joint or I'm submitting a report to the chief…detective"

 

John grumbles, but sits down on the empty desk chair and starts rolling up the hem of his trousers.

 

"I can do it myself." "Well you obviously haven't." "Give me the olive oil." "I know which points to press, it'll be over quicker."

 

"Fine. Just get on with it, we have work to do."

 

Dorian kneels carefully in front of the exposed leg. It's a good prosthetic; I'd be hard to tell it wasn't always a part of John's body to anybody who didn't know the story, the hologram uncannily accurate. Not to Dorian of course. He can sense the flow of information from it, the synthetic cells working tirelessly. It's interesting.

 

Dorian sends a signal that heats up his hands from his usually chilled body temperature. The prosthetic senses temperature shifts and Dorian knows that warmth feels more pleasant to the human body, even if it doesn't matter to androids.

 

The first place he touches is just behind the knee, a spot that would be the softest on a human leg, but here contains some key control points and the maintenance channels. The pressure causes the hologram around the leg to disappear, the grayscale of the latex outer body revealed.

 

 John seizes up immediately, grabbing Dorian's wrist in a vice-like grip. Dorian looks up at him, an angry retort on his lips that freezes when he sees how vulnerable the detective looks. Dorian tries to imagine what he sees; the synthetic with the bleeding heart, blue information web lit up in brilliant color.

 

John lets go of his wrist and looks away. His body is tense and his cheeks are reddening, but he doesn't protest.

 

Dorian presses down behind the knee, rubbing the points there in circular motions. The prosthetic connects to him through the data pads and guides him to the right places and the right pressures. The information flow is easier to control now and it's a familiar weight on his maintenance programs.

 

He rubs circles into the front of the knee, where the tense ligaments whisper in thanks against the synapses in his finger-pads. The last point he reaches for is a bit above the knee, so Dorian slips his fingers underneath the rolled up pants leg and presses gently. He can feel the exact moment all the connections fall into alignment, both from the nicely ordered information flow he senses in his programs and the little sigh John lets out above him.

 

Dorian runs a quick diagnostic through the detective's body while it adjusts to the absence of pain. Besides the slightly elevated heartbeat and the flush spreading over the upper body, the detective seems to be in good health. The only thing that worries Dorian is the hormone build-up in the testicles. He runs it through his databases and frowns. The detective is probably not sexually active, unsurprising, as he's just woken up from a coma and with the recent revelation about his last romantic liaison. This could be the source of some of the detective's tension and it explains the unusual reaction to Dorian's touch.

 

How long had it been since the detective had been touched with the warmth and regard of another being? Too long, Dorian decides, as John practically runs out of the room with a muttered thank you. He sets his problem-solving protocols on the issue. Likely it was time to begin a search for a suitable romantic partner for his partner.

 

 

*

 

 

The Insyndicate cell is cold and damp and Dorian can feel it. Which is unusual, considering that none of the programs he uses to control his body are working and that he cannot open any communication channels with the station network.

 

The virus the Insyndicate developed was effective, leaving his mouth workable and his sensory synapses active as they interrogate him. The encryption protecting his information banks has thankfully made it impossible for them to simply steal the information from his head, but that didn't mean they weren't trying to extract it by other means.

 

"Tell us the code." intones the female Insyndicate agent. Dorian searches for her name, knowing that she has a past with his partner. John. He has to protect John.

 

Dorian screams as the agent activates the virus code and all his nerve endings are over-stimulated at the same time, the pain followed by information overload that scrambles his cognitive programming.

 

It's the fifth time they activated the virus and he's not sure how long he can continue rebooting from it. If he were an MX unit, they wouldn't be able to do this to him. A MX would have self-destructed to prevent them getting the information long ago. Dorian has the triggers too, can feel the channels that lead to his metaphorical red button, but he can't activate them. Not yet. Not when John might still be searching for him and the information he'd gained might be the key in helping them bring down the Insyndicate once and for all.

 

So Dorian keeps searching through his encryption files, hoping for something, anything to help him. The virus is replicating inside him, slowly eroding his coding, and overwhelming his carefully constructed nerve-endings. Dorian can feel his vocal box tearing and the tear fluid running down his face.

 

Then he finds it.

 

It's a tiny trickle, a weakened connection living at the back of his coding, connecting him to the information flow inside John's prosthetic. It's been there since the olive oil episode, though he'd been unaware of it. Likely, it's because he’s spent so much time with the detective that the connection felt natural. He feels it wrap around his abused coding like a blanket, perhaps carrying with it the faintest echo of John's concern.

 

The virus breaks into the first memory bank. Dorian grasps onto his only connection to John like a lifeline and activates the self-destruct trigger.

 

The system shuts down.

 

 

*

 

 

DRN unit 0167 wakes up in a biopod with two unidentified human males standing over it.

 

The android fixates on the one labeled: KENNEX, John. Partner, says his identification sub-unit.

 

Inside its programming, a tiny strain of coding, that should by all accounts have been erased, unfolds and looks for a connection lost.

 

"Dorian?"

 

The unit isn't listening. It's carefully moving its finger-pads closer to the edge of the bed, toward its Partner. It rests the pad against the top of the detective's knee.

 

The connection flows. The only thing betraying anything unusual is the brief widening of the synthetic's eyes and the information sensor going hi-ware.

 

"Hi, John." The grip on the detective's knee tightens briefly, before John wraps his fingers around Dorian's hand. "You found me."

 

"My leg wouldn't stop screaming coordinates at me; I had to find some way to shut it up."

 

"Hm. You smell like olive oil."

 

"Shut up."

 

And so they stand, half a man to half an android, grinning like loons at each other, holding hands like teenagers.

 

In the silence, there is a beep. Then:

 

"Calibration complete."

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr](http://jjjat3am.tumblr.com/). Come say hi!


End file.
